The Unlikely Triumph of Melodic Death Metal

When Possessed and Death invented death metal, melody was the last fucking thing they were thinking about.

They wanted to play faster, harder, sing about fucked up stuff and explore new ways of being extreme. Chuck Schuldiner in particular wanted try new stuff, break patterns and challenge his audience. Anything that would link them to popular music wasn’t even considered. It would have been beside the fucking point of being metal. It was a specific counterculture that was moving AWAY from the variables of popular music, so moving back TOWARDS pop would’ve been seen as an unacceptable compromise.

But it happened. Not only it did, but melodic metal became some of the most popular subgenres. Although it was counterintuitive, the success of melodic death metal (and everything it influenced afterwards) is not surprising because melodic music is conventionally easier to listen to. It can be appreciated by more people and can serve as a gateway into darker and moodier genres. How did it start? Why had this crazy idea to growl to melodic music? It’s kind of straightforward, except at the very beginning.

As it is often the case, it’s Carcass' fault (sort of)

The idea of melodic death metal was born (as far as I can understand) when Liverpool-based goregrind legends Carcass signed a major American distribution deal with Columbia records. There were hints of melody in their previous record Necroticsm - Descanting the Insalubrious, but they embraced melody and never looked away on their iconic breakthrough record Heartwork, which is still considered by many to be their best album today. By all of us really, it is the best thing they’ve done.

Now, the circumstances of such a crazy and unexpected paradigm shift were never clear. Swedish guitarist Mike Amott is apparently responsible for bringing less extreme ideas and a more conventional song structure into the fold (Sweden and melody have a thing for one another). Amott would leave Carcass after Heartwork, return to Sweden and create Arch Enemy, another foundational band of melodic death metal. I guess he used his time in Carcass in order to prove to himself that his ideas had value?

So it’s somewhat of an accident if it started in the U.K this time. There’s no telling whether Carcass had a commercial imperative to de-Carcass themselves. They’ve been evolving organically into what they would eventually become, but one is to believe it was probably welcomed. It’s unclear how much Heartwork influence what would become, but I don’t think it did all that much. What it did was to familiarize audience with the idea of melodic death metal and prepare them for the inevitable.

Gothenburg, Sweden

Melodic death metal had its real, systematic start in Sweden. That’s as far away physically and philosophically to what was going on in Tampa at that time. There were three bands that popularized the sound: At the Gates, In Flames and Dark Tranquility, who are all still active today. These were not influenced by Carcass as much as they were influenced by older bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, who were not exactly into caveman riffs. I like to believe these guys were into ABBA also because they were catchy.

In Flames is the band I know best among these three and I know they had an interest in traditional Swedish music as well, which they incorporated to their sound on their debut record Lunar Strain in 1994 on songs like Behind Space and Starforsaken. These guys incorporated radical ideas that were outside of metal as a paradigm. That’s why their spin on melodic death metal was so revolutionary and influential. Their early run up to their 1999 album Colony is still regarded today as foundational.

With all respect to Dark Tranquility who inspired more of a hardline strain of melodic death metal, At the Gates were the other crucial band of the Gothenburg movement. They were the most accessibly of all three and their iconic debut record Slaughter of the Soul was so successful in a grassroots way due to the internet and peer-to-peer file sharing, it found its way into households that were culturally foreign to Sweden and melodic death metal culture and would go one to inspire new and exciting music.

Vocalist Tomas Lindberg was also inspirational to an entire generation of young artists because he was not a monolithic growler. He was more intelligible and wasn’t afraid to hit high notes, which shouldn’t come as a surprise since black metal was all the rage over there in the nineties.

Splintering and Conquering Metal

It went two ways from there, but melodic death metal more or less became the most important metal subgenre for about ten to fifteen years after the Gothenburg revolution. Some of the most important and popular bands in the genres would either be in extreme music or be influenced by it: Amon Amarth, the aforementioned Arch Enemy, Children of Bodom, but also younger American bands like The Black Dahlia Murder. All the bands you’d normally see headlining major festivals.

Another important wrinkle in melodic death metal history would be the advent of melodic metalcore (which we will talk about in the upcoming months). Boston’s Shadows Fall was one of the bands responsible for incorporating the Gothenburg sound into their brand of metalcore, but it would be bands like Killswitch Engage, August Burns Red, As I Lay Dying and Trivium that would turn the genre into perhaps what was the last great extreme metal revolution we had at the turn of the millennium.

One thing I want to add about melodic death metal and its offsprings is that it was philosophically different from anything that came before. That’s why it’s so important. Lyrically, it was much more mature and sometimes even focused on positive things. These guys were not looking to be extreme. They were looking to earnestly express what they felt within an extreme paradigm, which is why I often refer to melodic death metal as metal finally turning into adult age. Boogeymen were going out of style.

Melodic death metal and all its hybrids and offsprings are still prevalent today. Most of the foundational bands are in their fifties and still active. Carcass is touring the US with Hatebreed of all bands as we speak. There are bands like Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, Soilwork and Darkest Hour still doing their thing. It will forever be one of the three main direction a band can take with their sound: technical/progressive, melodic or heavy/diossonant. It’s part of what metal has become.

Here you go. This was a shorter chapter, but melodic death metal isn’t one of the core genres. It’s kind of its own thing.

Before I leave, let me share with you five foundational songs for melodic death metal.

Death - Lack of Comprehension : I didn’t talk about Death in this piece because I talk about them all the fucking time in this project and they were not a melodic band to properly speak of, but they’ve influenced melodic death metal and they were perhaps the first ever band to include melody in death metal. Because Chuck Schuldiner was always the first to do anything.

In Flames - Starforsaken : I love this song so fucking much. It’s a good example of how the ideas of melody and death metal didn’t quite make sense together at first, but you could understand where the inspiration was coming from. Power, beauty and melancholy coexist on Starforsaken as well as they do in any classic melodic death metal song.

At the Gates - Blinded by Fear : Listen to how Tobias Lindberg sounds here. It’s something almost completely new. Lyrical themes are different. more thoughtful. At the Gates brought a different crowd to death metal, selling its undeniable power as a tool to do something more than just freak out the normies. Lindberg would inspire so many frontmen in the following twenty years.

The Black Dahlia Murder - What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse : Look, a new generation of melodeath musicians doing it differently. The Black Dahlia Murder were more muscular and in your face, their imaginary was also different, but they were undeniably inspired by the Gothenburg sound. They were having their cake and eating it too. They still do. RIP Trevor Strnad.

Omnium Gatherum - Frontiers : This isn’t a new songs by any means (2016, I think), but it’s kind of where melodic death metal is today if you discount the genres that were inspired by it. Omnium Gatherum were never afraid of leaning into the MELODIC part of melodic death metal. It’s high flying and more inspired by NWOBHM than ever. It’s something very precise, but it represents what melodic death metal strives for.

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